• Visions of the city: I is for Ice

    Amid the recent oppressive heat wave, it may be hard to imagine when warmth feels good. But there comes a time when people put on hats and gloves and scarves and engage in outdoor activities to generate body heat, and the contrast with the cold is invigorating. The drawing above, by architect and...Read more

  • Building the Beloved Community in Atlanta

    In Martin Luther King Jr.’s home of Westside Atlanta, a nonprofit is partnering with the City and public and private organizations to transform disadvantaged neighborhoods using a new urban design plan.
    “Physical solutions by themselves will not solve social and economic problems, but neither can economic vitality, community stability, and environmental health be sustained without a coherent and supportive physical framework.” From the Charter of the New Urbanism​ Five years has passed since a...Read more

  • Visionary leadership creates new downtown

    Frisco, Texas, has been one of the fastest growing cities in the US over the last three decades, going from a small town of 6,000 in 1990 to more than 200,000 today. In the 1990s, when the city north of Dallas began to boom, officials acquired land for civic buildings like a city hall and police...Read more

  • A man who loved and observed cities

    A biography of William Whyte reveals a big thinker with a keen eye for details and a trust of his own observations over dominant planning theories—a trait he shared with collaborator Jane Jacobs.
    William H. “Holly” Whyte is best known, in urban planning circles, for his sociological research into what makes public spaces successful, as reported in his 1980 book, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces . Whyte, who died in 1999 at 81, used cameras, careful observation, and collection of data...Read more